In a speech yesterday Michael Wills (whom I dont know myself, but he’s Labour member of Parliament for Swindon North, and a Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice) called for a new, more courteous and respectful dialogue over government’s use of personal data. IdealGovernment has wanted this for years. But – as he […]

Having dumped controversial former chief executive Wally O’Dell in 2005Diebold has now finally dumped its e-voting unit. This was a deeply unpleasant history, and the new buyer Election Systems & Software (ES&S) is far from Ideal.

Bloody marvellous. When the database state + Experian connive to wreck your life, there’s no comeback! So rules Bill Blair (brother of the devout war-mongerer himself) in a High Court judgment, reported by El Reg: An entrepreneur whose fledgling business was ruined by a false entry in a court database has had his claim for […]

It seems the mechanised state is slanderous (or libellous): Criminal Records Bureau errors lead to hundreds being branded criminals More than 1,500 people have been wrongly branded as criminals or mistakenly given a clean record by the government agency set up to vet those workin g with children, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. By Christopher […]

More criminologists have pointed out the poor statistical analysis behind the Home Office’s DNA database plans, says The Guardian: “Flawed scientific thinking” in the government’s proposed changes to the DNA database will leave it open to further challenges by the courts, experts have said, in a stark attack on Home Office plans to overhaul the […]

Ben “Bad Science” Goldacre has a careful look at the evidence provided to justify DNA database policy by the Jill Dando Institute of Inappropriate Shroudwaving: In fact, this study from the Jill Dando Institute, attached to their consultation paper as an appendix, is possibly the most unclear and badly presented piece of research I have […]

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Over at Ctrl-Shift Ive tried to sketch out the impact of VRM (buyer-centric commerce, customer-managed relationships, user-driven identity) on public services: It seems to me the effects of VRM on public services will be of four sorts. It will improve public services. It will cut costs. It will de-tox the “database state”. And it is […]

The database state can be a bit heartless with bereaved parents. This poignant example from the Beeb is far from Ideal: The parents of a girl who died suddenly have received a school letter demanding she improves her attendance. The letter, dated 16 March, said “students must have at least 92% attendance and Megan’s is […]

There’s some confusion at the D’oH! about who is the servant and who the master: NHS bosses leading the rollout of the Summary Care Record are refusing to take no for an answer from patients who say they want to opt out, Pulse can reveal. GPs in the first wave of the rollout are being […]

Couple of nuggets in Obama’s weekly address: To lower health care cost, cut medical errors, and improve care, we’ll computerize the nation’s health record in five years, saving billions of dollars in health care costs and countless lives. Hey! Why dont we sell them NPfIT/CfH? On second thoughts…let’s just see how they go about it. […]